Revolutionary Tribunal Research Articles

Revolutionary tribunals of the Tambov province 1918–1922

Importance. Reforming the public administration system is impossible without analyzing and taking into account the historical experience of the activities of punitive authorities. Revolutionary tribunals, created as a weapon in the fight against opponents of the Bolshevik regime, became a form of legitimization of state violence. Studying the mechanism of functioning of these bodies of the Soviet system has important heuristic significance, along with the need for public understanding of the role of repression in the fight against social protest. Modern scientific publications testify to the attention of researchers to this problem. An analysis of the historiography of the issue gives grounds to assert that a promising direction in the study of the topic of “revolutionary justice” is the analysis of the activities of provincial revolutionary tribunals, as well as clarification of the nature of their relationships with other repressive authorities.Materials and Methods. The source base for this work consists of materials identified in the funds of central and local archives and introduced into scientific circulation, most of them for the first time. The documents used made it possible to study the process of organization and practical activities of revolutionary tribunals in the Tambov province of the period 1918–1922. Factual material related to the struggle of these bodies with peasant protest is extracted from materials of local periodicals. The work used a systematic approach, as well as general scientific and historical research methods.Results and Discussion. An analysis of the process of creating revolutionary tribunals in the Tambov province is carried out. Their place and functionality in the management system, as well as the criteria for personnel selection of their employees, are established. The role of the military revolutionary tribunal in the fight against mass desertion is studied. The nature of the relationship between the provincial regional tribunal and the local Cheka is clarified. Based on investigative materials and sentences, the nature of the charges and penalties applied to peasants, participants in rural “rebellions”, as well as food workers who committed violence during the seizure of grain are established. The repressive activities of the Tambov provincial RVT and its visiting sessions to combat and prosecute both armed rebels and the civilian population of the village assisting them are considered.Conclusion. Based on a wide range of archival and other sources, it is established that the activities of the revolutionary tribunals of the Tambov province in the period 1918–1922 was punitive in nature and aimed at suppressing anti-government protest.

Organization and activities of emergency institutions in Crimea in 1921 in conditions of geopolitical tension

The article analyzes the political institutions, processes, technologies characteristic of the period of formation of Soviet power in Crimea after the end of the large-scale Civil War. The phenomenon of the Civil War, from the author’s point of view, was expressed in an irreconcilable struggle between the centers of power that emerged from the ruins of the empire, with the geopolitical factor itself playing an important role. The article notes that in Crimea in 1921, emissaries of British and German intelligence services were actively working, that is, those forces that had previously made considerable efforts to overthrow the monarchy and unleash a Civil War in the Russian Empire. The formation of the Crimean ASSR as part of Soviet Russia in the fall of 1921, as well as the creation of a new powerful state of the USSR with its own social project in December 1922, was not at all part of their plans. Therefore, Western opponents tried as much as possible to use the inertia of the Civil War to destabilize one of the key regions of the RSFSR. Under the current conditions, it was quite logical that a number of leaders of the anti-bolshevik underground wanted to establish close contacts with opponents of Soviet power abroad in order to combine efforts in the fight against it, which objectively became a factor of geopolitical tension in the Soviet Republic in general, and in Crimea in particular. In conditions of increasing conflict in Crimea, a system of emergency institutions is being formed. This system included the Crimean Revolutionary Committee and its local bodies, the establishment of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, Special Purpose Units, and revolutionary tribunals under the general ideological leadership of party bodies. The author comes to the conclusion that emergency institutions objectively opposed the implementation of projects of Western powers to destabilize the situation in Crimea and contributed to a certain ethnopolitical stabilization of the situation in the region. On the other hand, their activities were characterized by a class approach, which led to thoughtless repressive policies and inevitable “excesses” in their work, aggravated by weak coordination of actions and the lack of strict control at the first stage.

Retrospective of the Emergence and Development of Departmental Procedural Control as an Element of the Mechanism for Correcting Investigative Errors. Case Study of the Activities of Revolutionary Tribunals in 1917–1922

Development in 1960–1990 of departmental procedural control as the theory of criminal procedure understand it now would have been impossible without the tribunal justice in 1917–1922. The use of the historical legal method made it possible to analyze the dynamics of the functions of revolutionary tribunals with general competence, to study their relationships with emergency commissions and other bodies of inquiry and preliminary investigation. The results of the study showed that in 1917–1922 the tribunals not only administered justice for the most serious crimes, but also performed the function of identifying investigative errors, for which they were endowed with the appropriate procedural powers. The author draws conclusions about the degree of effectiveness of the implementation of these powers in the conditions of permanent reform of tribunal justice based on a study of statistical data from the mentioned period. An analysis of the normative legal acts that regulated the activities of revolutionary tribunals allows us to say that in 1917–1922 departmental procedural control was not differentiated and its development was inseparable from the evolution of judicial and departmental control, and later — prosecutorial supervision.

Юридическое и доктринальное обоснование запроса советского общества на создание единого судебного центра — Верховного Суда РСФСР

The article is devoted to the analysis of the relations connected with the establishment of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR in 1923. The approaches to the legislative consolidation and solution of practical issues of the organization of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR are being investigated, when with the end of the Civil war there was a request for a judicial system that would eliminate dualism associated with the existence of a system of revolutionary tribunals, ensure the rule of law and contribute to the protection of new social relations. It is concluded that the creation of the Supreme Court as the highest centralized judicial body with cassation, supervisory, control, and leadership functions, with activities for instructing courts and interpreting law, allowed the implementation of the principle of a single court, understood as the unity of the judicial system. The study shows that the highest party and Soviet authorities took part in solving organizational and personnel issues at the establishment of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR. The article analyzes issues related to determining the limits of independence of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR and its relations with other bodies. The Supreme Court of the RSFSR was the highest judicial link for courts of general jurisdiction and for special courts, creating conditions for ensuring the unity of judicial practice in the RSFSR.

ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ СИСТЕМЫ РЕВОЛЮЦИОННЫХ ТРИБУНАЛОВ НА ТЕРРИТОРИИ СРЕДНЕГО ПОВОЛЖЬЯ В 1917 – 1923 ГГ.

The article is devoted to the first measures of the Bolsheviks government aimed to combat crime and ensure the defense of the proletarian regime, the formation of the extraordinary judicial bodies, i.e., revolutionary tribunals, which marked the beginning of the establishment of the Soviet legal system. The relevance of the article is due to the need for an objective analysis of the historical experience of creating the system of revolutionary tribunals, and to the presence of "blank spots" in the historiography of the formation of the system of extraordinary bodies of the Middle Volga region during the Civil War. Comprehensive analysis of the formation of revolutionary tribunals on the territory of the Middle Volga region in 1917 – 1923 is based on the previously unknown materials from the State Archive of the Ulyanovsk region, the State Archive of Contemporary history of the Ulyanovsk region, the State Archive of the Saratov region, the State Archive of the Penza region and the Central State Archive of the Samara region. The authors examine the formation and legal status of extraordinary judicial bodies, as well as their permanent reorganization, and come to the conclusion that the process of formation of the system of revolutionary tribunals was implemented by local party structures. Under the conditions of socio-economic and political crisis, the revolutionary tribunals quickly turned into effective judicial bodies and functioned until the end of the Civil War, when they were reorganized into People's courts.

РЕПРЕССИИ В ОТНОШЕНИИ ДУХОВЕНСТВА РУССКОЙ ПРАВОСЛАВНОЙ ЦЕРКВИ НА ЕВРОПЕЙСКОМ СЕВЕРЕ РОССИИ В 1920- 1921 ГГ.

The article is devoted to one of the stages of the persecution of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, namely 1920-1921, marked by a campaign to combat “counter-revolutionary” views and anti-Soviet ideology. This period was characterized by the persecution of the clergy who had sided with the anti-Bolshevik forces during the Civil War. The author examines the cases of priests who were prosecuted for their activities in 1918-1920 on the territory of the Arkhangelsk and Olonets dioceses. The research is based on the materials of judicial and investigative cases, meetings of the revolutionary tribunals.

An Occasional Amnesty. How the Siberian Bolsheviks Granted Amnesty to Kolchak Ministers

The article analyses the history of the amnesty granted by the Bolsheviks in 1921–1923 to nine Kolchak ministers led by P. I. Preobrazhensky, G. A. Krasnov, A. A. Gratsianov and N. Ya. Novombergsky, prominent figures of the anti-Bolshevik governments, convicted by the Extraordinary Siberian Revolutionary Tribunal at the open trial in Omsk on 20–30 May, 1920. Based on a wide range of archival sources, the authors have reconstructed the entire pardon process, from the improvements in conditions of detention to the official decision of the VTsIK. Amnesty is considered as a political tool of the Soviet power, which allowed the communist leadership of the country to effectively correct the cruel punitive policy, play the card of restoration of social justice, and win the victims over to its side. It is concluded that the pardon of the Kolchak ministers was an individual but significant component of the process of restoring civil peace in Russia at the end of the internal military-political confrontation. What made this amnesty unusual among the many similar acts announced by the Bolsheviks in 1922–1923 was that not the rank-and-file members of the anti-Soviet struggle were pardoned, but its immediate leaders. The main reason for the rehumanization of former enemies were their personal ties and contacts in the upper echelon of the Soviet leadership in Siberia, which were formed primarily in the course of joint activities. The main criterion for applying the amnesty was the high quality work of the Kolchak ministers in the economic departments of the Siberian Revolutionary Committee under the conditions of severe labor shortage.

Revolutionary Military Railway Tribunals in Northwestern Russia

This article discusses aspects of activities and social functions of the revolutionary military railway tribunals, which operated in 1920–1923. The novelty of the research is ensured by the lack of attention to this theme in historiography and the involvement of a wide range of sources which have not been previously introduced into the scholarship. The author focuses on the activities of the railway tribunals in four railway networks: the United North-Western Roads (Warsaw and Baltic directions), the Petrograd part of the Moscow-Vindava-Rybinsk network, Nikolaevskaii railway network (the prospective October railway), and Murmansk network. Three revolutionary military railway tribunals operated there. The author, for the first time in historiography, describes the reasons and the process of organizing the latter, their staff composition, and the forms of their work that changed at different stages. The emphasis is placed on the emergency powers of employees of these departments and the tasks assigned to them which was manifested in almost unlimited freedom of the members of the tribunals in administering justice in the “interests of the revolution”. The article presents an original perspective on the process of the controversial activity of the transport tribunals. The study reveals a conflict between their urgent task to restore labor discipline, on the one hand, and practical activities aimed at indulging the avant-garde class, on the other hand. The author comes to the conclusion that the tribunals, first of all, sought to unite the proletarian collectives around the Communist Party. Managers’ enthusiasm for an ideological project led them away from reality. In the final part of the article, it is proved that during the period of new economic policy, the activities of the revolutionary tribunals lost their extraordinary character. They ceased tocorrespond to their purpose and, in fact, turned into people’s courts, being abolished in 1923.

Страница истории Успенского собора Г. Осы в период антицерковной кампании

The country was on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe in 1921-1922. The food policy in the countryside, the lack of workers and draft animals, crop failure, the Red Terror are the main causes of famine. The events take place in the small county town of Osa, Perm region. The parishioners of the Dormition Cathedral refused the proposal of the local authorities to hand over church property to the Committee for Assistance to the Starving in the Volga Region. The purpose of the study is to show the attitude of the Orthodox residents of the county to anti-church policy using the example of unique archival documents. The methodological basis of the study is the principles of objectivism and historicism. In order to demonstrate the influence of objective facts on historical events, an ideographic method was applied. The use of archival documents as a primary source allows us to restore a picture of the relationship between the authorities, parishioners and the church. After the devout of the Dormition Cathedral refused to hand over church property to the famine relief committee, arguing that it would be looted, an anti-church campaign was launched with the mediation of local authorities, and a criminal case was opened against two priests. The protocol of the meeting of the devout is the only document that has been preserved and filed with the criminal case - the last manuscript of the parishioners of the Assumption Cathedral. Most of the documents of the case are represented by protocols of searches and interrogations of priests, testimonies of witnesses and sentencing. The Orthodox residents of the Osinsky district decided not to go into conflict with the district executive committee and decided to allocate personal funds for the fight against hunger, realizing that their funds would be embezzled. It was an attempt to save the Dormition Cathedral from ruin. But, as the subsequent course of events showed, the local authorities did not appreciate the deed of the parishioners, and the refusal to hand over church items was used as a pretext for initiating a criminal case and starting anti-religious propaganda in the press. All the accused were ultimately sentenced by the Perm Provincial Revolutionary Tribunal to community service. It is not known how the further fate of the clergy and parishioners developed. The Dormition Cathedral, built at the expense of parishioners in the late 18th - early 19th century, which was once the center of world of spirit suffered a sad fate. The central dome and bell tower were demolished, and the rest of the building is occupied by the local museum.

Anita Kurimay. Queer Budapest, 1873–1961

Anita Kurimay. <i>Queer Budapest, 1873–1961</i>

Особенности вынесения приговоров Московским революционным трибуналом по делам духовенства и верующих в 1918–1920-е гг.

The article analyzes the cases of the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal, directed against the clergy and believers, deposited in the funds of the Central State Archive of the Moscow region. Along with high-profile processes, such as the "Case of the Council of United Parishes" ("The case of A.D. Samarin, N.D. Kuznetsov") 1919-1920, the Moscow trials ("The 1st and 2nd trials of churchmen") of 1922, which resulted from a campaign to seize church values, the author examines lesser-known cases accusing rural clergy of resisting the Decree on the separation of Church and state and counter-revolutionary activities. Analyzing the sentences of the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal handed down in the period of 1918-1920s. with regard to the clergy and clergy, as well as laypeople, the author comes to the conclusion that the main purpose of the tribunal was a policy of intimidation of the clergy and believers, demonstration of the omnipotence of the new government and the permissiveness of its punitive bodies. The general trend in the work of the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal was the practice of issuing initial demonstratively harsh sentences, which were immediately replaced by lighter, and sometimes even conditional, sentences at the same meeting of the tribunal. In some cases, the mitigation of sentences took place in several stages, as a result, even those initially sentenced to death were released within 2-3 years after arrest. The article notes that most of the clergy tried by the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal no longer left the field of view of the organs of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD and were subsequently arrested, many more than once. For them, the fact of conviction and even acquittal by the revolutionary tribunal became a kind of marker that marked the future victims of the repressive system.

The judicial system at the stage of the formation of the Soviet state as the most important element of the state legal system: the activities of the revolutionary tribunals

This article examines the main historical, ideological, social and other factors that determined the emergence of the judicial system of the Soviet state (RSFSR) during its formation in 1917-1922, as well as the main patterns of its further development, features of legal regulation of the activities of courts and extraordinary judicial bodies, as well as the views of Soviet jurists on the essence and importance of courts in building socialism in the early stages of its development.

К ВОПРОСУ ОБ АНТИЦЕРКОВНЫХ ПРОЦЕССАХ МОСКОВСКОГО РЕВОЛЮЦИОННОГО ТРИБУНАЛА 1918–1920-Х ГГ. (ДЕЛО СВЯЩЕННИКА МИХАИЛА САХАРОВА)

The article considers the mechanisms of the repressive anti-church state policy of the Soviet government, which began its formation immediately after the October Revolution, using the case example of the Moscow Provincial Revolutionary Tribunal of 1918 against the rector of the St. George Church of the village of Vanilovo in the Ashitkov parish of the Bronnitsky district of the Moscow province, Father Mikhail Sakharov. The case was based on the incident with the beating of the Bronnitsky district Commissioner of Education, who wished to explain to residents the essence of the decree on the separation of Church and state. Even though the case materials incontrovertibly testified that the priest was not involved in the incident, he was convicted together with the participants of the beating as the initiator of the violence that occurred. The article emphasizes the political bias of the prosecution and its direct connection with the decree “On the Red Terror” proclaimed in September 1918. The latter, among other things, is confirmed by the fact that investigative actions in the case did not begin immediately after the beating of the commissioner in February 1918, but only in October. It is also noted that the practice characteristic of several cases of the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal is the gradual mitigation of initially harsh sentences up to a full amnesty of convicts.

Chernigiv Provincial Revolutionary Tribunal: «the Case of Lyakhovych»

Chernigiv Provincial Revolutionary Tribunal: «the Case of Lyakhovych»

The State versus the People: Revolutionary Justice in Russia’s Civil War, 1917–1922, by Matthew Rendle

What role did revolutionary tribunals play in spreading and consolidating Bolshevik rule during the civil war? How did tribunals fit into the fledgling Soviet justice system? What was their role in forging new Soviet citizens? These are the key questions that Matthew Rendle seeks to answer, aiming in six chapters to cover ‘all the activities of tribunals, and through these, their potential impact’ (p. 266). The book’s strongest contributions are of an empirical nature. Rendle ably lays out the creation of revolutionary tribunals and the relationship between them and people’s courts. Whereas people’s courts dealt with ‘regular crimes’, tribunals had the explicit task of fighting ‘counter-revolution’. Rendle also depicts the struggle for influence between tribunals and the secret police, or Cheka—which ran its own revolutionary tribunals to sentence embezzlement, bribery and forgery by officials during the civil war. He includes a detailed overview of official decrees, an informative discussion about...

Vigilante, Brigand, Terrorist: Staging Popular Justice in Revolutionary Times

This article examines the many rewritings of a single story: the adventures of a brigand vigilante, first told in Schiller's Die Raüber, adapted by Lamartelière into the 1792 hit Robert, chef de brigands, and updated over the next decade through new endings and sequels. The evolving nature of this vigilante – from noble brigand to popular insurrectionist to merciful judge to Terrorist – reflects the anxieties produced by the shift from a conception of justice as a transcendental force, originating in God's will and flowing through the king and his courts, to an immanent model resting on the notion that all humans possess an innate sense of right and wrong and thus the ability to judge. The manifold revisions of Schiller's story open a window onto the shifting sands of Revolutionary justice, revealing the impact of such events as the September Massacres, Louis XVI's trial, and the institution of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

ЧЕРВОНИЙ ТЕРОР НА МИКОЛАЇВЩИНІ В 1919 РОЦІ

The theme of the red terror in Mykolaiv region in 1919 is virtually unexplored. The study of the problem that is discussed in this article is necessary and relevant in connection with new conceptual approaches in the studying of the issue of the red terror in Ukraine during the Civil War. The process was aggressive, not an act of self-defense, as the Soviet historians claimed. The purpose of the article is to comprehensively analyze the processes associated with the emergence of Bolshevik terror, to characterize the means and mechanisms of the terror, to find out that the terror was unable to help the Bolsheviks to retain power in Mykolaiv region in 1919. The challenge is to characterize the economic course of the Bolsheviks called "military communism", which led to mass peasant uprisings in the territory of Mykolaiv region, to recognize that the Bolsheviks' terror was aggressive against entire sections of the population who were outlawed, to find out what to do relied not on legal laws or the judiciary, but carried out with the help of "extraordinary commissions" and revolutionary tribunals, to characterize the types of punishment associated with the red terror: forced labor, imprisonment, mass shootings, to highlight the consequences of Bolshevik terror in Mykolaiv in 1919. In the article the author gives the sad statistics of the red terror in the Mykolaiv region and concludes that the red terror was an aggressive, not a defensive phenomenon, that it was directed against entire sections of the population, outlawed by the Bolsheviks; the terror of the Bolsheviks relied not on the legal basis and the judiciary but on the basis of "extraordinary" and the revolutionary tribunal; The Bolshevik repression did not help them retain power in 1919.

Революционные трибуналы в системе антикрестьянского террора (1918–1921 гг.)

We reveal the forms, methods and features of the participation of revolutionary tribunals in anti-peasant actions carried out by the authorities in 1918–1921, including against the participants in the Antonov revolt. We analyze the significance and role of tribunals as specific types of special courts in the implementation of the authorities’ policy towards the peasantry. It is argued that the revolutionary tribunals occupied their definite place in the system of anti-peasant terror and carried out their specific functions, fulfilling the task of formally legalizing unstructured violence against peasants. We analyze the process of increasing the repressiveness of the tribunals against the background of a sharp increase in anti-Soviet manifestations on the part of the peasantry, which ultimately resulted in anti-peasant terror. The task of the revolutionary tribunals as an institutional instrument of anti-peasant terror was to judicially legalize repression against the pea-santry. The role of the tribunals in the prosecution of deserters, the bulk of whom were again pea-sants, is revealed. It is argued that the revolutionary tribunals were granted the broadest confisca-tion rights against deserters and the process of their implementation. Considerable attention is paid to the activities of the revolutionary tribunals during the suppression of the peasant revolt in the Tambov region, in particular the Tambov revolutionary military tribunal, which was a parallel structure of the territorial revolutionary tribunal, which was under the jurisdiction of the Revolu-tionary Military Council of the Republic.

Діяльність колегії особливих народних слідчих при Подільському губернському революційному трибуналі

Abstract. The purpose of the article is to determine the legislative and organizational-legal foundations for the functioning of the college of special public investigators at the provincial revolutionary tribunal. In addition, the author set out to investigate the features of the formation of the staff of the investigative collegiums at the provincial revolutionary tribunal in Podillia, to trace the procedural and legal aspects of the organization of the pre-trial investigation and the progress of the collegiums of cases. The methodology of the research is characterized by the use of general scientific methods such as analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction. Also, special historical methods were used in the study: historical-chronological historical-comparative and historical-genetic. Scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time on archival materials the features of the formation of a college of special people's investigators at the provincial revolutionary tribunal were examined. In particular, the age, educational and vocational qualification level of special public investigators is characterized. Also analyzed are the features of the organization of pre-trial investigation and the progress of cases in the investigative board both in the provincial center and in the counties. In addition, the features of the introduction of prosecutorial supervision in Podillia province and its impact on the rule of law in the work of the college of special people's investigators were investigated. Conclusions. From the beginning of its formation and throughout its functioning, the college of special people's investigators at the Provincial Revolutionary Tribunal constantly had been feeling the lack of workers. This was partially due to the peculiarities of the personnel policy of the party-state apparatus, which provided for the rejection of representatives of pre-Soviet justice bodies and set political loyalty as the main criterion for appointing workers. This was partly due to the actions of the Communist Party provincial committee, other local committees and other local authorities, which constantly transferred workers from the investigative collegiums for other purposes without being replaced by new ones. In addition, special people's investigators could not effectively carry out their work due to insufficient qualifications and part-time work in other institutions. All this led to a delay in the pre-trial investigation, repeated violations of the procedural law and violations in the organization of accounting and the movement of criminal proceedings.

SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE URAL REGIONAL COURT N. V. ZHIRYAKOV

Based on archival documents and an autobiography, the author describes the life and work of the first president of the Ural Regional Court Nikolai Vasilyevich Zhiryakov. His career growth from a regimental clerk to the head of the Yekaterinburg Provincial Revolutionary Tribunal and the first president of the Yekaterinburg Provincial Court is investigated. The article considers the historical surroundings of the Civil War and the court formation in the first years of Soviet rule.